Amy Butler Swap....includes pictures!

DISCLAIMER: If you are my partner for the Amy Butler weekender bag swap and don't want to see your bag, stop reading! If you do want to see it, then continue on....but don't tell me if you don't like it because I'll be crushed!

This bag was the most heavy duty sewing I have ever done, and that's considering that I do make a lot of home decor items with heavy fabrics. Not only is the fabric thick, but there are layers of Peltex, interfacing and cording, and that's just on one side of the seam! Try putting together 2 panels that are interfaced, Peltex'ed, and have cording in addition to 2 layers of fabric. I'll tell you what you get: A whole lotta broken needles and cursing. The actual make up of the bag was pretty easy: 2 main panels, a bottom panel, top panel with a zipper, handles, pockets and a lining all put together in your typical way, but the number of layers was BRUTAL! I am thrilled that I finished it. If this project hadn't been for a swap I would have put it to the side for a long time and probably forgotten about it. That's what I like about swaps. They take me out of my comfort zone. Anyway, here it is:

In other project news, I competed step 1 of my English paper piecing mystery, and received step 2 this morning. Here's what I have so far:

On my list of things to do: figure out how to take better pictures. This project is much better looking in person. The palette of fabrics is off to the right.

I'm off to my LQS now to pick up this month's quilt block. Looking forward to getting out of the house and let DH take care of the home front for a bit. :)

Lots of sewing news

Happily, I have a bit to report. First off, I completed this little quilt as a baby gift. It is for relatives in Italy who we will be staying with in a couple of weeks. I forget how old their daughter is, but I figured a little girly baby quilt would be appropriate. Now to think of a gift for our hosts and I will be all set!

The tag says "Made for a Little Princess". They are generic store-bought tags. Usually I'm a little more creative with tags, but for this I wanted something more "clean" looking.

My English paper piecing project is coming along. This is my progress halfway through the first step. There are still lots of basting stitches and threads hanging around it, but you get the idea. Next up is basting the fabric to the honeycomb shapes and attaching them around the edge (I placed the paper pieces in for the photo). They will be in the same fabric as the center octagon. Just getting this far was a lot of work, so I wanted to share the progress! The 2nd step will be posted on Saturday.

In swapping news, I received a great package from Karen in Australia as part of the We The People Mini Scrap Swap. It was sooo much fun to go through the fabric scraps. I'm one of those people who likes to order the "grab bags" from online fabric stores and rummage through the remnants at quilt shops, so this swap was right up my alley. Karen wrapped everything in fabric with Australian kookaburras and gum trees on it (don't think I'll bring myself to cut this one up!), and she also sent the pattern and embroidery floss as extra goodies. Many thanks to Karen!

Lastly, tonight I will be attending my first quilt guild meeting. I found a guild that meets only minutes from me and the members also do work for Quilts 4 Kids, which I'm already sewing for. I have no idea what to expect, so it will be a mini adventure. The exciting part is that Bonnie Hunter will be visiting the guild in April. I made her most recent mystery, Double Delight, so it would be fun to hear her speak to the guild.

Happy sewing :)

English paper piecing mystery

Happy Valentine's Day!

Tonight I am starting an English paper piecing mystery that I found on quiltcampus.net (see button on side bar if interested). My first attempt at EPP was last month when I did bow tie blocks for the about.com monthly block lotto. Even though I'm in love with my 2 Bernina sewing machines, I enjoyed the hand piecing, and it made me think that an EPP project would be perfect to take along to Italy with me in a couple of weeks. So in my Internet searching for patterns, I found a whole section of quiltcampus.net devoted to EPP, and in mystery form to boot! So here are my fabric choices. Again, the photo does not do the colors justice. The solids pick up the colors in the main fabric nicely. One little snafu: I don't have enough of the background fabric (the print batik on the right). Hmmm...gotta do a little Internet shopping I think :)

More charity quilts

Here's a big stack of quilts that will be donated to Quilts 4 Kids. The group takes donated fabric and cuts it into kits so that quilts can be made for hospitalized children. My sons' preschool teacher used to do work for them and that's how I discovered this group. Their main headquarters location is only 10 minutes from me, and they have chapters all over the states. I like having a local connection to a nationwide group. Isn't this a great looking stack of quilts? It is such a great feeling of accomplishment to look at these quilts. And I could stare at the bright colors all day!!

Pictures of the individual quilts are on my flickr account http://www.flickr.com/photos/abxkris/. Four of the quilts are a simple 4-patch, but I love the other pattern. We learned it in a special Q4K workshop last month. The borders are made with scraps from trimming the block centers. Isn't it a great pattern?

On another note, I'm making progress on my Amy Butler weekender bag. Making something like this for a swap is a bit daunting because it's a huge investment of time and money, so I'm really hoping that my partner likes it!!

Needleturn applique

These blocks are my first attempt at needleturn applique. And they will most likely be my last. This has not been my favorite technique that I've ever tried. But I'm glad that I did try it. The about.com block lottos have gotten me to try techniques I wouldn't try on my own. Last month I did English paper piecing and now I'm addicted! I'll be starting an EPP mystery project on Valentine's Day. I'm so excited. But I digress.....Here are my appliqued blocks. The color is horrible in this picture. The blocks had to have red hearts with purple corners. I am proud of them, but it is obvious that they are a beginner's work!

A charity project

Tonight I made 2 star blocks to donate to the Bushfire Quilt Project that has been started on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/groups/977757@N25/). The pattern is called Maverick Star and is from www.quiltville.com. I hope the quilt that they go into offers a bit of comfort to someone who has been devastated by the fires in Australia. One of my most recent swap partners is from Victoria and to hear her take on the events in her country is heart breaking. Fortunately, she and her family are alright. These 2 blocks took me less than 1/2 hour to make and were done entirely with scraps. I think we all have the resources to make a couple of these. Please follow the link above if you're interested.

Success!

Here is a mini quilt I made for the Teeny Tiny Square Quilt Swap that I found in blogland at http://scraphappyquilts.blogspot.com/. The only rule was to use squares that were between 1 and 1.5 inches before piecing. I obsessed FOREVER about the quilt design before finally setting on this combination of 4 and 16 patches. It is machine pieced and quilted and finishes at 17" x 17". There is a dime on the lower right hand square of the center 16 patch to give you an idea of the square size. It's not perfect, but a lot of effort went into it and I'm proud of the final product. At the beginning of next week I'll send it to it's new home in Australia. Hopefully I get a positive response from my secret partner for this swap. Here is the reverse side.... I used an extra 4 patch as a tag.

I will miss this little mini delight.

Stash Talk

Just yesterday I decided that my stash was becoming out of control, so I decided that it was time to organize! How timely because today's Sew, Mama, Sew blog post is all about people's stash habits. My quilting cottons are mainly stored in 2 large plastic storage drawers. Here's a before picture of the top drawer. Anything that didn't fit in the drawers got piled on top (or to the sides, or around the bottoms, or....wherever):

It was starting to get difficult to find things, so I decided to sort and fold it. Here's the bottom drawer now:

Wow! Check me out! Here's a little questionnaire from Sew, Mama, Sew that got me thinking 'bout my stash:

What do you usually sew? Quilts and Home Dec items

When you shop for fabric, what size cuts do you usually buy? whatever is there or about 1 yard

Do you buy on impulse or do you go out looking for something you need? both

Are you a pre-washer? Not for myself. I will most likely pre-wash for a swap

Do you iron it? Yes

How do you sort it? I have novelties, holiday, stripes/plaids/dots, asian, batiks and then different colors

Do you have any special folding techniques? With selvage on the side and raw edge facing me, I wrap the fabric around my 5" wide acrylic ruler and then fold to get a square roughly 7" in length

How do you store your fabric? Under my cutting table in plastic storage drawers

What tips do you have for building up a well-rounded stash? Participate in swaps! Or join a FQ of the month club, which sends you a certain amount of FQ's each month. Both of these definitely get me out of my comfort zone.

When do you say enough is enough? It hasn't happened yet

What are some of your favorite stash-busting projects? Scrappy strip quilts

What’s your definition of the perfect stash? One that makes you smile and gives you butterflies every time you look at it!

Thanks to Sew, Mama, Sew for getting me in touch with my stash.

Mystery Quilt sew along progress

Have you noticed the graphic on my side bar about the Make-this-up-as-I-go-along mystery quilt? Here's how it's turning out.....Now I'm just waiting for the 2 borders that will complete it :)

I guess it's pretty obvious that I like batiks, huh?

Project wrap up...

On Feb 26, I'll be going to Italy! So, that means I have 20 days to finish up some projects and prepare a project to take along with me. I'm thinking that I'd like to English paper piece some fans and then applique them to the background fabric (an idea someone gave me on the about.com forum). In the meantime, I have to finish an entire Amy Butler weekender bag, a mini quilt, mail 2 swaps, paper piece a block and complete the LQS BOM. There seems to be plenty of free time in the upcoming weekends, so I should be able to do it as long as I plan my time accordingly. Here's a picture of the HGTV BOM for Feb:

I'm also in the process of folding and organizing my stash. I can't wait to post of picture of that! It's turning out beautifully.

Lots done today

Today I started sewing almost as soon as I woke up and only stopped to go to BJ's and to straighten the house. I finished up the 2nd charity quilt top from yesterday, and I also finished a top that I had here at the house. All in all that makes 3 Quilts 4 Kids tops that are ready to be quilted and bound. In other projects, I completed the batik block for the LQS BOM, and began a baby quilt to give as a gift. A small task that I'm actually excited about is the label that I printed out, transfered to a piece of fabric and then appliqued to the back of my Double Delight quilt. It's such a nice touch. Funny how something so small can have such a big impact on me.

Here is the January batik BOM and a little shot of my DD label next to it :)

Today, for the first time, I tried my hand at needle turn applique. I made a heart in snowball block for about.com's February block lotto.

I don't think it turned out horribly, but I also don't think that I will be turning out tons of these blocks either. We are not allowed to do any raw edge applique methods such as using double sided interfacing and blanket or satin stitching the edge (that would have been my preferred method). So, I tried something new. Last month I tried English paper piecing for the first time and I ended up being one of the lotto winners! Maybe something good will happen from trying these blocks too :0)

A very productive day it was!